Day Job Stuff is keeping me on my toes, that’s for sure. A few things have come up that I’m having to deal with in different ways. (Yes, I’m being vague for the moment.) A few personal things have been serving as distractions as well. Nothing horrible, of course. Just some irritations, decisions, and changes.
On top of that, I’m going to need to delay the release of In My Blue World. I don’t want to, but I’d rather delay it than rush the job and put out a half-assed and ultimately unfinished novel. I won’t do that to y’all, it wouldn’t be fair. So for all of you who might have picked up my freebie card at Worldcon with the lovely ‘Coming Autumn 2018’ sticker slapped on the back, I’m afraid it’s probably looking more like ‘Coming Early 2019’ instead. Sorry about that. But I promise you won’t be let down by the improved and revised version!
Which brings me to determination: I’ve got a LOT on my plate right now, and strangely enough, I work really well when that happens, as long as I’m completely in charge of it all. [If I’m constantly distracted by unexpected changes, that’s another thing entirely.] So a lot of things juggling in the air, but I’m bound and determined to make it all work. Such is the life of a writer: stubborn will and determination to keep going despite the odds.
Hopefully in a few weeks things will be back to normal and I’ll be able to breathe and take a break again…!
I’ve said this before: one of the biggest problems with being a writer, especially one with a Day Job, is that you’re sitting on your butt for long stretches of time. I’m really horrible at this, to be honest. I might get up and stretch now and again, but I don’t do it nearly enough. I’m sitting for most of eight hours, perhaps head to the gym a few times a week, and then sit for another few hours in the evening writing.
There’s also the fact that I’ve long had a bad habit of snacking whilst working and writing. I’d like to say I don’t have a Junk Food Stash anymore, but that’s not exactly true… it’s smaller, but it’s still junk food, and it’s in the kitchen. A few boxes of Pocky, an almost empty bag of chocolates we bought at the Heathrow duty-free. I’m trying to change that up; I’ll have a banana, or some cheese sticks, or hummus and crackers (Trader Joe’s sells a great snack pack of these that I love). I’m not drinking nearly as much soda as previous.
But it’s not enough. I’m not moving around as much to burn those calories. What I need to do is figure out some regimen that I can sneak in at some point during the day. A few reps of crunches and stretches. More walks after work. More frequent trips to the Y. I need to MOVE more is what I’m saying here.
So why the health kick all of a sudden? Well, short version is that I’ve found myself on a lifestyle-change kick right now. A need to change things both inside and out that I’ve either ignored or put off for far too long. It really doesn’t have much to do with my age, to be honest — I’m forty-seven and change — but to do with personal things; career, emotions, physical issues, and what not. I’m reasonably healthy if a bit overweight with slightly high blood pressure. I’m also thinking more seriously about my calling as a writer, and what I want — and need — to do with my craft as a professional. Among other things. I think about it this way: it’s not a midlife crisis so much as it’s a midlife clarity. Time to shed the bad habits and the lifestyle I no longer want or need and get movin’.
This does in fact tie in with my writing. Over the last few months, while working on the revision for In My Blue World as well as writing the Apartment Complex story — as well as a few smaller personal things I’ve been sneaking in when I can — I realized that my writing can’t truly evolve if I don’t evolve somehow. I’ve mined as much as I can from what I’ve been working with for years, and I want and need to change it up. The AC in particular has been helpful here; it’s the first story where I did not hold back for any reason, and the result so far has been eye-opening on many levels. I’m immensely proud of what I’ve done with it so far, and I can’t wait to share it.
So yes — this is me saying that I need to keep moving, both physically and mentally, if I’m going to get anywhere. I can’t be half-arsed about it anymore.
I’d say one of the hardest things for me to learn as a writer, especially when I was younger, was learning how to give each character their own distinct voice. By this, I mean letting each character sound unique. [Let’s just say that a lot of my high school-era writing sounded like a lot of Jonc clones spewing bad puns, whining about how life sucks, and making obscure music references. It makes for extremely embarrassing and painful reading…]
I learned to do this in different ways over the years. During my film college years I paid attention to differences between characters in the numerous movies I had to watch for assignments. In the mid to late 90s and into the 00s I became a voracious reader, not just of fiction but comic books and manga. Nowadays I keep my eyes and ears open for even more unique voices out there.
It becomes a focus on how the author or director wishes to let the story unfold. There’s often a reason why this character is written the way they are, and why they act the way they do. It’s easy to fall into safe character tropes. They’re not inherently bad, but I try not to rely on them too often, as I feel that makes for samey characters and stories, and I don’t write those very well at all.
My personal way to get around this is often to go beyond the tropes and make them unique. Twist them a bit. Instead of the Disheveled Investigator nursing a hangover and trying to find out why no one’s talking about a murder, turn it on its head: Disheveled Investigator is stone cold sober for personal reasons that tie in with a previous case, and the murder is being covered up by a rival investigator who’s a raging alcoholic and also his best friend. Et voilà, unique characters and a nifty use of conflict for your plot!
I’ve also made it a point to read a lot of different writers — not just in terms of gender, but in race. I’ve long had a love for Japanese literature, and that’s expanded to Latinx, Chinese, and more recently, Arabic/Middle Eastern literature as well. I love to witness how a story unfolds in different cultures; why they unfold the way they do, the tropes they use in their own culture, and so on. It gives me grist for the mill. [I should probably state here that I’m not purposely appropriating here; I’m paying attention to how other characters in other cultures work within the context of the story, and contemplating if this is the kind of character I could write myself.] There is indeed a little bit of Method Acting involved, at least for me. I like to get inside each of my characters’ heads a bit to learn how they tick. And I learn a little bit in the process!
This process of learning how to write other voices other than your own can be tricky, but with time and practice, you’ll eventually get it.
I’m trying to remember the last time I tried submitting one of my novels to a publisher or an agent, and I’m thinking it may have been at least five or six years go, when I’d just finished the final edits of A Division of Souls. I’d submitted it and other projects off and on over the years before that, with no success.
That part was frustrating, sure, but I won’t hold it against the publishers and agents. I get why it’s so hard to get past the slush pile. I got over it, and it helped me take the idea of self-publishing a hell of a lot more seriously. It also made me a better writer in the process.
During our vacation a few weeks back, I reread what I have so far of the Apartment Complex story, and I was struck at how different the style is from most of my other novels. It’s not as frantic as the Bridgetown Trilogy, or free-floating as Meet the Lidwells, or as fantastical as In My Blue World. It feels like a style I could really sink my teeth into with future novels. At the risk of tooting my own horn, I think this is some of my best stuff yet. [Even after threatening to ragequit the project in frustration earlier this year, at that!]
Dare I say, I’m rather proud of it right now.
It got me thinking — maybe this one has a good chance of being picked up somewhere? I mean, yeah, I have a wish list of publishing houses and agencies where this would fit in quite nicely, and that’s a good place to start.
So why now, and not with the other novels? I think part of it is due to the fact that my previous work does feel rather indie. I’d like to think they’re decently written, but they purposely don’t have that Manhattan Literary Sheen™ to them. [I’m not saying that as a put-down. I say this as a parallel to, say, the loose noise of early-era Dinosaur Jr or Sonic Youth on indie labels versus their much cleaner late-period major label releases. I produced my self-published novels to be indie on purpose rather than to attempt to conform to something more commercial.]
Simply put, the Apartment Complex story, I feel, is a story that deserves a strong platform. I’d rather not see it fall through the cracks due to my inability to get it seen by potential readers. It’s a story that I truly would like to share with a lot of people.
That said…I’ll have to start doing my submission search soon, because it’s been ages since I’ve looked at a Writer’s Market to see who’s out there nowadays and who’s accepting and who isn’t, and what format they prefer.
But that part’s easy. It’s getting the thing done and all cleaned up that’s the hard part!
I’ve been working without my reading glasses lately, and strangely enough I seem to be doing better. I have kind of weird eyesight in that I’m not entirely near or farsighted, but lately it feels like my sight is getting better for some reason. I often wear glasses when driving or when reading, but I’m finding it harder to read with them than without them. Especially when I’m reading text on my phone.
Yeah, I’m not sure either.
Anyway, I’ve chosen not to wear my reading glasses during Day Job hours or during writing, just as an ongoing experiment to see how my eyesight truly is. I know there are certain things that get me dry-eyed (staring at a screen for hours, natch) and angles that give me issues (looking hard to my left, my eyes go slightly out of skew and I see double — but not to the hard right!), and I’ve been making sure I don’t ignore these issues.
Having decent vision is right up there alongside decent hearing for me. I read and write about as much as I listen to music, and I do both FAR more than the usual person. (I also do all the driving in this household, so I’d rather not drive like Mr Magoo, thankyewverymuch.) I try not to overdo it, and if I do feel like I’m overdoing it, I’ll make sure I take some time to give the ol’ eyes and ears a rest for a bit.
This brought to you by a writer who needs to remind himself to keep to healthy habits more often!
During a Worldcon panel the other weekend, someone had asked one of the panelists about detail in your prose; when do you need more, and when do you have too much? It’s a very good question indeed, because it’s one of the biggest mistakes a beginning writer often makes.
I should know, because I’ve gone through both extremes. Back in my school days, my writing lacked so much exposition that it read more like a shooting script than a novel. A few years and a handful of trunked projects later, I finally got the hang of balancing exposition with the action and dialogue. However, I soon slid to the opposite end of the spectrum: my prose was far too verbose. It took a few more years before I finally found and stuck with a happy medium.
How do I handle keeping a fine balance between prose and exposition in my writing? Good question, because half the time I’m going by instinct. I suppose all writers have their own balance they’re comfortable with, and mine is achieved by being aware of my pacing. It all goes back to my equating novel writing to songwriting: I go with what sounds right to me musically.
When I’m writing a scene, I’ll know ahead of time whether or not this is going to contain a lot of action and detail (fast beats, layered production, a high-powered chorus, and perhaps a middle eight to provide a quick breather before moving on again), if it’s going to be a highly emotional scene (slower pace, minimal production with detailed focus on the melody, a memorable chorus, and a solo to pull at the heart strings), or if it’s just going to be a connecting scene (short, sweet, and to the point, and the barest hint of a motif borrowed from a previous piece).
With this in mind, I’ll know when I need to fill out the scene with exposition or detail, or when it needs the barest of touches. A connecting scene will be tedious and drag on if I decide to put an infodump there, but it’ll make much more sense if I spread it out over the course of an action scene. Perhaps as a character slowly coming to the realization that the cousin was the murderer after all, and that all the pieces suddenly fall in to place and giving him even more reason to keep chasing this now-familiar shadowy figure in the alleyway.
Most of this is instinct to me now, because of my decades of listening, studying and memorizing different pieces of music. I write the scene according to the pace and the emotion I’m looking for. This is my particular style of writing so it may not work for everyone, but it certainly works great for me, and hasn’t steered me wrong yet. I even use it now and again when I’m writing these blog entries; even if it’s only a quick five hundred words, it’s still worth it for me to make the flow and style enjoyable to you, my readers.
I can’t tell you exactly what works for you as a writer, but I think keeping all this in mind might give you an idea of providing your own answer to that question: when do you need more information in your prose, and when do you have too much? Listen to the pace you’ve set, and let it provide the clues for you.
I won’t go into detail, but it’s one of those times where Best Laid Plans are thwarted by no other reason than Unexpected Events. And this time out I have a few personal issues that have popped up that are causing stress and frustration. All I can do is deal with them, and balance them alongside these same Best Laid Plans.
It can be incredibly frustrating when this happens when you’re a writer. You don’t want to ignore the personal issues going on, but you’d rather not put your livelihood on hold, especially when you’ve worked so hard over the years to make them happen.
The most you can do is soldier on somehow, same as if your Best Laid Plans were thwarted by the Day Job, or whatever has come your way. For me, the most I can do is continue to find the time to push through these projects the best I can, despite it all.
Note to Worldcon newcomers who typed in the URL from my freebie cards: Hi there, and thanks for your interest! I talk about writing a lot on this here blog, so if you have any questions on that sort of thing, by all means feel free to ask.
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Note to self: even with the best of intentions, heading out to a major convention fifty-plus miles away the day after a ten-hour flight back from London isn’t the best of ideas, no matter how you slice it. We have been moving almost nonstop in one way or another for the last sixteen days. Lesson learned.
We’d decided to take Sunday and Monday off from everything and just relax and catch up on what needs catching up, that way we’re somewhat conscious and rested come Tuesday when it’s back to the Day Job. We’ve been on vacation for almost the entire month, having flown out of SFO on the 4th and joining the working world again tomorrow. It’s only two weeks and an extra day, but it feels so much longer than that.
While I didn’t get any new words done on any projects at 750Words, I did do a hell of a lot of reading of both In My Blue World and the Apartment Complex story (as you see from the previous fly-by posts). I focused most of my attention on the former since it’s first in the release queue, and worked my way up to about the first third of the novel. I’ll keep this up until the run is complete and then jump in on the Big Honking Revision Process.
Which brings me to the following: I’ve noticed that my revision process has definitely changed over the past five or so years. I’ve taught myself newer and quicker techniques, discarded my bad habit of flailing the story into shape, and paid a lot more attention to the details. I’m sure I still have a long way to go, but I’m definitely getting there.
That said, I’ll be back to normal on Friday with more writing insights — I gave myself some time to think about new and different subjects to blog about here, and I hope you’ll enjoy the entries when I post them!
Oh, we’ll be there. I’m just not promising I’ll be awake or coherent.
Despite having just come home via a ten-hour flight from London, we’ll be making our way down to San Jose for Worldcon 76! I’m not on any panels this time out, but I’ll be saying hi to all my writer friends. If you see me, say hi! 🙂
I’m still going through In My Blue World and making notes on what needs fixing. There are two MAJOR fixes to be made: one, that I need to change the POV to omniscient 3rd person, and two, that a number of sequences need to be pasted together. It’ll be a big undertaking that I won’t be able to start for another week or so, which of course is making me twitchy.
On the plus side, the story itself is solid — it’s tight and there aren’t that many holes and continuity issues I need to fix. It’s only the prose (and the first chapter or so) that needs cleaning up. And the cover is already done! I’m still aiming for an October/November release at this time. *crosses fingers*
So…what about the Apartment Complex story? Good question. I’ll still be working on that when I can and take my time, as I purposely haven’t assigned a drop date for it. [There is also the cover art issue, but that’s another post entirely.].
